China is becoming the epicenter of world diplomacy. Official media boasts about it and, indeed, it seems that right now almost everything goes through Beijing, although it is not clear whether the solution to the many crises in the world will emerge from there. These days it has received a visit from Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, and last week it was the turn of Donald Trump, the President of the United States. In recent months, Xi Jinping has received the leaders of Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, and South Korea, to name but a few, not to mention the visit at the beginning of the month by Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi. Thus, China has first-hand information about everything that is happening, but so far it has not become directly involved, although it is dropping some hints.

The indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero by the National Court, which positions him as the "leader" of an international influence peddling and money laundering scheme, represents a political earthquake of great magnitude that threatens to leave his party, the PSOE, and Pedro Sánchez's government in a very deep crisis a year before the elections. It must be understood that Zapatero is a pivotal figure in the narrative of sanchismo; that he is the person who, during his term, initiated the break with the PSOE of Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra by questioning certain aspects of the Transition, and who has assisted the current president in both electoral campaigns and delicate matters, such as dialogue with Junts.

The Catalan government will have budgets. It was about time. The last ones were approved in 2023. We cannot get used to considering it normal to govern without updated accounts. It is not acceptable that budgets are increasingly dragged from legislature to legislature due to the inability to reach agreements. Politics is precisely that: pact. A sense of responsibility beyond expressing legitimate differences.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a public health international emergency situation due to an Ebola outbreak in Congo that has already caused 88 deaths out of a total of 336 probable cases. This outbreak, therefore, is much more serious than the hantavirus one that affected a cruise ship and monopolized media attention for days. And it is because it has a much higher pandemic potential, as authorities have detected that transmission is proving to be much wider than initially detected.

Andalusia is celebrating its thirteenth regional elections this Sunday, a series that began in 1982 and in which a solid socialist hegemony was maintained until Juanma Moreno Bonilla acceded to the Junta in 2018 hand in hand with Ciudadanos and Vox. In this last decade, Moreno Bonilla has built his own profile, different from the state PP, and especially different from the Madrid PP, based on moderation, good manners, and undisguised Andalusianism. In reality, it is a formula that recalls Pujol's Convergència, albeit without questioning the Spanish national project, and which is also practiced, for example, by the Galician PP and, to a lesser extent, the Balearic PP.

The Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman very well described the importance of an economic variable that is fundamental, although it may be unknown to most citizens. "Productivity is not everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything," he said. The fact is that growing is one thing, and progressing or prospering is another. Or, more simply, volume or quantity is one thing – gross domestic product (GDP) is increasing and in Catalonia it has already exceeded 300 billion euros – and quality is another, that is, how this pie is distributed among all those who live in a given economy.

No society can survive without respecting and preserving its heritage. That is why heritage is always controversial, always provokes tensions, is always disputed, claimed and, when there is conflict, eliminated. It is what defines us as a people and what makes us universal, what ties us to our past and what allows us to glimpse the future. Of heritages, however, there are many types. It makes no sense today to relate it only to stone, buildings, archives or classical arts such as painting or sculpture. Cinema, photography, video and, of course, comics have been part of it for many years. In fact, in the digital world we live in, some may wrongly think that they are also part of the past.

Finally, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, has acknowledged the error of plainclothes officers infiltrating a teachers' assembly and has apologized. Parlon described the incident as a "poorly planned operational maneuver" that has resulted in a breakdown of trust between educational unions and the Government at a time of maximum labor tension, and has committed to ending the inertia of the corps that caused it. The ministry has, therefore, completed the U-turn that was glimpsed in the early moments of the crisis, ruling out, however, any political responsibility or "bad faith" on the part of the corps.

The press conference called this afternoon by surprise by Florentino Pérez with the aim of announcing the call for elections at the club has led to a lamentable confrontation with the press that has revealed the true face of the madridista president. The entire intervention has been a forward flight that has distilled arrogance, haughtiness, sexism, and contempt for journalists and any shadow of opposition. It has been a communication catastrophe for the entity from which it will take many years to recover.

Teachers are holding the first of three days of general strike this Tuesday in a month, to which other days of localized stoppages will be added. It will be the most educationally and organizationally complicated end of the school year in many years. It remains to be seen what the follow-up by teachers will be and how families will react. Will they, one and all, follow the rhythm of such extensive and intensive, such demanding protests? It is true that there is a feeling of tiredness and disappointment in the professional collective that has led to this situation, but it is equally logical and natural to think that the majority desire a return to normality: the climate of protest also wears down, and in the medium term it can become unsustainable.

It seemed we had forgotten the pandemic and that the trauma and consequences of those long months of confinement, isolation, and pain were behind us. It seems clear, however, that there are sequelae, many, and that one of the most obvious is the fear of repeating the experience. Only from this irrational anguish can we understand what a sector of its population has staged in the Canary Islands in recent days, and above all, its main political representative. Being generous, one can think that Fernando Clavijo, Canary president for Coalición Canaria, believes that his population is still terrified by the experience of covid and wants to avoid the possibility, however remote, that the ship MV Hondius could be the start of a new pandemic. This, and only this, would humanly explain his overreaction in recent days, in which he has tried in every possible way to prevent the ship from docking or even, as happened, from anchoring in the port for fear that potential rats could swim ashore and infect the population.

A few years ago, the government of the Generalitat established a commission of experts, a kind of board of wise men, to determine which sectors Catalonia should focus on for sustained growth. One of the conclusions was obvious: tourism. It was a time when there was great interest in promoting the aeronautical industry, with little presence in Catalonia. It was not achieved. In fact, land that had been reserved to create a kind of park dedicated to this activity is currently occupied by a large outlet in the municipality of Viladecans. On the other hand, over time, an ecosystem of start-ups emerged, making Barcelona and Catalonia an international benchmark.

The decision by the General Directorate of Information of the Mossos d'Esquadra to send two plainclothes officers to a teachers' assembly to, according to the force, conduct a risk assessment in the face of a labor dispute "always adhering to current legislation" has generated a political storm that could complicate life for the Government. The fact that the teachers discovered the identity of the officers, who posed as teachers at a school, is a blunder that threatens to widen the current rift between teachers and the ministry, just on the eve of a new round of negotiations that was to begin on Monday.

Hantavirus is so called because, although it is ancient, the first outbreak of the disease that was scientifically studied was contracted by North American soldiers patrolling near the Hantan River during the Korean War, in the 1950s. It is a known virus with several families: human transmission is only known in the so-called Andes hantavirus, which is what affected the passengers of the MV Hondius. It does not have the virulence of COVID, that of the flu or, even less so, that of measles, but the mortality rate if left untreated is indeed high. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are five confirmed cases, three of which have resulted in death, and three more symptomatic cases awaiting PCR results. The possibility of a ninth case has also emerged, which would be a flight attendant who was in contact with a woman who died. If confirmed, it would be worrying, as it would be the first person to have been infected without being on board the ship.

The Ramón Areces Foundation and the Valencian Institute of Economic Research have calculated the cost of eliminating poverty in Spain, a figure they place at 24 billion euros, but the most interesting aspect is that the study offers data by territory and allows for a comparative analysis of the last 10 years. This provides two snapshots: a static one of which territories have the highest population at risk of poverty or exclusion, and a dynamic one of which have most improved these indicators in a decade. In this regard, Catalonia does not fare particularly badly, as it has 14.3% of the population at risk of poverty and 5.3% at risk of exclusion (extreme poverty), a figure that represents about half of that of the worst-off autonomous community, which is Andalusia.

The first rule of authoritarian leaders is to delegitimize institutions and never recognize an electoral defeat. We are seeing this in the United States with Donald Trump, who six years later still has not recognized Joe Biden's victory in 2020. In Spain, it is Vox who applies the trumpism instruction manual to the letter, and it has been weeks since Santiago Abascal and his followers have been propagating on social media and through every means possible the idea that Pedro Sánchez's government is preparing a rigged election for the elections scheduled for next year. This breeding ground is fueled by fake news about Indra's power, about the manipulation of mail-in voting, or about the effects that the regularization of immigrants will have on the census, which is nil. The objective, however, is to create an unbreathable climate, close to insurrection, and to prepare the ground to challenge the results if they do not match their expectations. The risk, however, of provoking a social explosion with violence is very high, as already happened on January 6, 2021, in the Capitol or also in Brasília on January 8, 2023.

One of the most important things that Foment del Treball does every year is to calculate the infrastructure deficit that Catalonia suffers from in order to denounce underfunding that particularly penalizes the competitiveness of the Catalan economy. The figure is obtained in a very simple way. The minimum investment that would correspond to Catalonia is calculated based on a percentage of GDP, which they set at 2.2%, and it is compared with the real figure, which is always lower. And if a sufficiently long period of time is taken, for example from 2009 to the present day, the resulting figure is scandalous, close to 50 billion euros. And if we add the cost of living, the figure climbs to 60 billion.

The tentacles of the housing crisis reach every corner of collective life. According to data obtained by ARA, the loss of school-age population in Barcelona is consolidating as a trend. Enrollment in early childhood education (3-year-olds, I3) has once again dropped to pandemic levels. It is worrying. And, at the same time, it is not easy to reverse, as we are talking about a structural socioeconomic reality.

The results shown by the survey published today by ARA, with all the precautions that a poll taken when no election is in sight entails, depict a profound and very worrying alteration of the Catalan party map. Basically, what is seen is a strong setback for the traditional centre-right parties, Junts and PP, who are overtaken by more radical and openly Islamophobic parties such as Aliança Catalana and Vox. The result is a much more polarized country with less room for broad consensus, and politically much more difficult to govern.

The results shown by the survey published today by ARA, with all the reservations that a poll conducted when no election is in sight entails, outline a profound alteration of the Catalan party map in a very worrying sense. Basically, what is seen is a sharp decline of the traditional centre-right parties, Junts and PP, which are surpassed by more radical and openly Islamophobic parties such as Aliança Catalana and Vox. The result is a much more polarized country with less space for broad consensus, and politically much more difficult to govern.